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Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue

Syria's President Bashar Assad said on Tuesday that no orders were given to open fire on protesters, months after his regime began a crackdown on dissent that has killed thousands and led to
international isolation and sanctions.

"There is no cover for anyone," he said during a televised speech at Damascus University. "There are no orders for anyone to open fire on any citizen."

The president has made few public appearances since the anti-government uprising began in March, inspired by the revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

He again claims that he was not the one to order the bloody crackdown. Then who among his security forces is responsible and why are they not being held accountable. The answer to that question would point right back at Assad, and everyone knows it.

The opposition holds him and his cronies responsible. Syrian and international human rights groups hold Assad responsible. Even the United Nations and the Arab League are looking at holding Assad responsible for the violence and the violent crackdowns even as Assad claims that there's a conspiracy to carry out violence against his regime. Assad blames terrorists and outsiders for conspiring to attack the government and that the majority of those killed are his security forces, but that would ignore the thousands of civilians, including women and children killed in peaceful demonstrations where gunmen and security forces opened fire on crowds with deadly results.

And as Assad has done in speeches made early last year, he claims that he'll engage in more reforms, although there's been no sign of any kind of reform to date. Assad has vowed to never step down; that in itself is proof that Assad is not serious about reforming; he's just looking for a way to remain in power and if he thinks that saying he'll reform will be sufficient to placate the protesters, he's sorely mistaken. The Syrian opposition is looking to expand its uprising against the regime.

The situation is getting to the point where Syria's neighbor to the north, Turkey, is warning that Syria may devolve into a civil war. Those predictions may be a bit premature, but if the Syrian opposition can coalesce into a more coherent force, and Syrian security forces see more drastic defections, the balance of power may tip towards an open insurrection and civil war rather than what we've seen thus far - a largely one-sided bloody crackdown by Assad's loyalists against opposition groups.